Cornucopian New Orleans

Cornucopian New Orleans

(Cornucopia)

Humans have an odd desire to engineer risk--"the known or estimated probability that a hazard-related decision will have a negative consequence" (Dr. Peppler)--out of nature which feeds our urge to live in risky places (cornucopians). This ties in with social construct in some ways. Humans construct the dangerous conditions to be seen in a tamed sense. It becomes an aspect of the local culture.

The notion that human beings believe that they can change any situation to play in their favor is a bit egocentric. It is nearly impossible to take the danger out of environmental situations. Inhabiting land along coasts and in natural disaster (tornadoes, earthquakes, etc.) prone areas has been, is, and will be dangerous no matter how much humans try to engineer the risk out.

New Orleans is one of these dangerous cornucopians that exists in America. As mentioned in previous posts, New Orleans must keep water out in order to remain afloat. The system of levees has proven to do just this for the city during mild to medium hazardous weather events, but full fledged natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 wreck this engineered adaptation.

Yes, rebuilding has already begun in the region after the disaster. But should it have been allowed in the first place? The danger of the region is a serious risk to the lives of the people that live there and the cost to rebuild is so expensive. What if this were to happen again? Another hurricane or a bad tropical storm and the levees breech? More money will be spent to clean up the mess and the amount of bodies lost will be too much.

The egocentric aspect of human kind in thinking that we can take the risk out of any situation is not rational. It might work for a little while, but the danger will always return and in exponential force. If we want to keep going on with the dream of engineering out risks, New Orleans needs to implement something other than levees. Levees will not stand against the wrath of natural disasters.

Engineering risk out of environment will only work for so long. New Orleans has horrible obstacles in its future if it sticks to using just levees. The city needs to have a better plan with regards to evacuating the city and manning the pump stations. They also need to consider moving inland and decreasing their playing with risk. Only time will tell what New Orleans will be forced to do and if they do not start planning now, irreplaceable lives will be lost and millions of dollars will be down the toilet.